Jacket
by Sazuka57
Summary: She always wore a zipped up jacket, and Charon didn't know why.


**Jacket**

She always wore a zipped up jacket.

When he first met her, she was wearing a dark leather jacket that she had looted off of a corpse. She had it zipped tight, and she told him that the jacket was where she kept her most valuable items. Charon had assumed that she meant caps, but more than once he saw her put caps away in her backpack, which slightly confused him.

She told him that she had a different jacket before that; one that was given to her from the local gang in the vault. But that jacket had long since been worn, and she had worn it until it started to come apart at the seams. She still had it though; back in the locker at her Megaton home. She confessed that she didn't have the heart to throw it away, as the sentimental value of it was very high. He had shrugged at the admittance, as he didn't care too much about her fashion choices as long as she was protected.

It wasn't until after she had gone back to Vault 101 that he started caring. After that particular misadventure, she had picked up a new habit of peeking into the jacket's collar from time to time. Sometimes she would do it only once a day; other times she would do it every other hour. He asked her about her newfound habit a few times, and she brushed it off and changed the subject every time.

He knew from the first time that he should leave it well alone, but the look on her face every time she inside the collar of her jacket…it was a sad look, a look of longing and acceptance, and it disturbed him. She usually wore a carefree look on her face; a look that told the world that she didn't care about what it thought about her; that she was going to do what she thought was right and no one else had a say in it. Her look told others that she found joy in the wasteland; that there was still magic and life in the dead place.

It was a look that gave many others hope and gained her many allies.

He tried peeking over her shoulder a few times, but to no avail. He couldn't see anything. Whatever it was, it was either too small or too thin to be seen easily, and it didn't help that the space that was created when she pulled back the collar was very, very tiny.

It started to eat him up after a while.

It wasn't until the preparations of the final battle that he learned what it was. She had taken off her jacket at the time to put on the recon armor that Lyons had bestowed on her, a small slip of paper fill out of the jacket almost instantly. She quickly caught it and gave it a tender look before frowning at the jacket. She stuck her hand in the inside pocket and her fingers came out on the other side. She then sighed and started looking around, asking Charon if he could see if there was a jacket lying around.

He shook his head and asked her what was so special about the paper that she couldn't simply put it her bag. She replied with a thoughtful look and an admittance that he had a right to know. She handed him the paper and he was astonished that it wasn't a paper, but an old photograph.

The photograph was well maintained, with just a few creases around the edges and slight discoloration in one corner. It was a photograph of a young girl and an older man, and, upon closer inspection, he saw that the girl in the picture was the same one that was standing in front of him, just a few years younger. He looked back up at her, and found her looking at the ground sadly.

"That's me and my father." She told him, "It's…all I have left of my old home."

Suddenly it all made sense. The reason why she kept it in the jacket rather than in her bag—the reason why she wore the jacket in the first place—it was all to keep her time with her father close to her heart. It was nostalgia as much as a reminder of why she was out here; why she was doing what she was doing; of how she was raised.

It was keeping her father's memory alive by living the way her raised her. It was her way of coping; her only moments of weakness. She kept them close to her heart to remind her of everything that was at stake.

It was almost noble, what she was doing. Foolish, too.

Charon silently handed her the photograph before shrugging off his own jacket. He silently held it out for her, and watched as her eyes widened in realization to what he doing. She refused his offer and told him that he needed the jacket more than she did, but he kept his hand out and gave her a stubborn look to match one of her own. He watched her with muted amusement as she wilted under his gaze and accepted the jacket, stuttering her thanks while she slipped it on.

It was too big on her, with the hem halfway to her knees and the sleeves covering her hand almost completely. But as she tucked the photograph away in the inside pocket and zipped the jacket up, it looked right at home on her figure. She smiled at him, her eyes expressing her gratitude, and took his hand in hers. She squeezed it briefly before letting go and heading to the door.

They got more than a few stares and raised eyebrows, but no one commented on it. And while she looked a little nervous, he didn't mind one bit. He just hoped she would make it out of the next battle alive.

The wasteland would lose what little life it had left if she were to die.


End file.
